Thomas Erpenius (1584–1624) was a Dutch orientalist and professor of Arabic at Leiden University, the first European scholar to systematize the study of Arabic grammar for Western students, and the original owner of the manuscript collection that included the 16th-century Malay translation of the Burda and other early Malay manuscripts collected in Aceh by Pieter Willemsz. Floris van Elbingh.
Career and Scholarship
Erpenius (born Thomas van Erpe in Gorinchem) studied at Leiden under Joseph Justus Scaliger and traveled to the Eastern Mediterranean (1608–1614) to perfect his Arabic and acquire manuscripts. Appointed professor of Arabic at Leiden in 1613, he published the Grammatica Arabica (1613), the Rudimenta Linguae Arabicae (1620), and an edition of the Historia Saracenica of Gregory Bar Hebraeus (1625). His work laid the foundations for modern European Arabistics. He also took an interest in Malay, as evidenced by his acquisition of Malay manuscripts through intermediaries in Southeast Asia.
The Erpenius Malay Manuscript Collection
Erpenius assembled a “kleine verzameling oude Maleise manuscripten” (small collection of old Malay manuscripts) within his larger Oriental collection. These were obtained via Pieter Willemsz. Floris van Elbingh, a merchant who stayed in Aceh in 1604 and sent manuscripts to Erpenius. The collection comprised at least four Malay codices containing: the story of Joseph (Qur’an 12), the death of Hasan and Husayn (fragment of Hikajat Muhammad Hanafiah), a cosmogony, commentary on Sura 18 (Seven Sleepers), a vorstenspiegel (mirror for princes) from Persian, two Arabic texts with interlinear Malay translation (the Burda of al-Busiri and a fragment of al-Ushi’s Bad’ al-Amali), Sura 58 (al-Mujadila) with Javanese usage notes, a Dutch-Malay wordlist, and a Telugu alphabet.
Posthumous Fate of the Collection
Erpenius died in 1624. Leiden University negotiated to purchase his library and printing press but failed to reach agreement. The collection was auctioned in Antwerp (c. 1625–1626) and bought by George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. His widow donated the manuscripts to Cambridge University Library in 1632. The Malay items remained unidentified until E. G. Browne brought them to the attention of M. J. de Goeje in 1894; Ph. S. van Ronkel published their description in 1896.
Legacy for Acehnese and Malay Studies
Erpenius’s acquisition of Malay manuscripts from Aceh in the first decade of the 17th century demonstrates that Dutch scholarly interest in the languages of the archipelago began with the very first Dutch voyages to the region. The manuscripts he obtained—especially the interlinear Burda translation—remain the oldest datable Malay manuscripts of Islamic content, providing a terminus ante quem of 1604 for the development of Malay as a vehicle for Islamic literature in North Sumatra.
See Also
- Pieter Willemsz. Floris van Elbingh
- Aceh
- Cambridge University Library
- 16th-century Malay translation of the Burda
- Hikajat Muhammad Hanafiah
- al-Ushi
- Bad’ al-Amali
- Ph. S. van Ronkel
- E. G. Browne
- George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
- Leiden University
- Joseph Justus Scaliger
- 1604
- 1613
- 1620
- 1624
- 1632
- 1894
- 1896
Source
Een 16de eeuwse Maleise vertaling van de Burda van al-Būsīrī, by S. G. Evenhage (Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), pp. 9–10; M. Th. Houtsma, Uit de Oostersche Correspondentie van Th. Erpenius, Jac. Golius en Lev. Warner, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, Deel 17 (1888), pp. 11–12. OCR source: 20260707_232246_DLP-54-Een_16de_eeuwse_Maleise_vertaling_van_de_Burda_van_al_Bu_s_i_ri_OCR.txt, pp. 9–10.